Home/Cabinet types
The vocabulary
Cabinet types explained
Every cabinet has a code and a job. Once you know which is which, pricing a kitchen stops being guesswork. This is every type carried in stock, with the sizes actually available.
How to read a code
The letters say what it is and the numbers say how big. WC3030 is a wall cabinet, 30 inches wide, 30 inches high. BC18 is a base cabinet 18 inches wide, because base cabinets are all the same height. Where you see LS or RS on a vanity, that is which side the sink sits.
Widths step in 3 inch increments almost everywhere, which is why kitchens are planned in 3 inch units and why fillers exist to absorb whatever is left over.
- Wall cabinets WC… · 39 sizes
The run above the worktop. Standard depth is 12 inches so they clear your head and your elbows while you work underneath. Pick height by what is above: 30 inch leaves a gap for a soffit or open space, 36 and 42 run closer to a nine or ten foot ceiling.
Widths 9–36″ · Heights 12–42″ · Depths 12–24″ - Wall cabinets with glass doors WCGD… · 21 sizes
Same box, glass in the door instead of a solid panel. Worth it on one or two cabinets, rarely on a whole run. Everything inside is on display, including the mismatched mugs.
Widths 11–20″ · Depths 29–41″ - Base cabinets BC… · 9 sizes
The run under the worktop, 24 inches deep and 34.5 high before the top goes on. The workhorse. Most kitchens are mostly these.
Widths 12–36″ · Heights 34″ - Full height base with spice rack BCFH… · 3 sizes
A base cabinet whose door is one full panel rather than a drawer over a door, with a rack on the back of the door. Good next to a range, where you want the things you reach for mid-cook at hand.
Widths 9–18″ · Heights 34″ - Drawer bases DC… · 9 sizes
Two or three drawers instead of a door. More useful than a door for pans, lids and utensils, because you pull the contents out rather than kneeling to find them.
Widths 12–36″ · Heights 34″ - Sink bases SB… · 3 sizes
A base with no floor shelf and a false drawer front, so the bowl and the trap have somewhere to go. Measure your sink before you pick the width. A 33 inch farmhouse bowl does not go in a 30 inch base.
Widths 30–36″ · Heights 34″ - Pantry and oven cabinets LC… · 6 sizes
Full height cabinets, 84 to 96 inches, for food storage or a built-in oven stack. The single biggest storage gain in most kitchens, and the thing people leave out of the budget.
- Vanity drawer cabinets VDC… · 3 sizes
Narrow drawer stacks for a bathroom, 12 to 18 inches. Usually flanking a vanity sink base to make up the run.
Widths 12–18″ · Heights 34″ - Arched vanities, offset sink VDCALS… · 6 sizes
A vanity with the sink offset left or right, so the counter has usable space on the other side. LS and RS in the code are left sink and right sink. Get this the wrong way round and the plumbing is in the wrong place.
- Mullion doors MD… · 9 sizes
A glass door divided into panes. A traditional look on the same box as everything else.
Widths 11–17″ · Depths 29–41″ - Wall diagonal corner WD… · 4 sizes
Turns a corner at 45 degrees rather than dying into it. The alternative is a blind corner, which is cheaper and holds more but is harder to reach into.
Widths 24–27″ · Heights 30–42″ · Depths 12–15″ - Angle wall cabinets AW… · 3 sizes
A wall cabinet with an angled end, for where a run stops against a wall or opening.
Widths 12″ · Heights 30–42″ · Depths 12″ - Wine racks WR… · 7 sizes
A wall cabinet fitted with a bottle lattice.
Widths 15–30″ · Heights 15–42″ · Depths 12″ - Rollout trays RTK… · 6 sizes
A shelf on runners that pulls out of a base cabinet you already have. The cheapest upgrade in the book, and the one people wish they had ordered more of.
Widths 11–26″ · Depths 21″ - Glass shelves GS… · 8 sizes
Replacement glass shelving for glass door cabinets.
Widths 7–34″ - Wall fillers WF… · 4 sizes
Strips used to close the gap where a run meets a wall that is not square. Every real kitchen needs these. Houses are not built to cabinet dimensions.
Widths 3–6″ · Heights 42–96″
What is not on this page
Panels, toe kick, moulding, fillers and the inserts that go inside drawers are all carried too, and they are the parts most often left out of a budget. They are covered in what a full kitchen actually needs.